Random Taps a Tough Brit

By Richard Zoglin

For 15 years he was one of Britain's most respected newspaper editors, first of the Sunday Times of London and then of the daily Times. But in 1982 Harold Evans was forced out after a much publicized clash with the paper's new owner, Australian-born press mogul Rupert Murdoch. Last week the media wheel of fortune took an ironic turn. In a shake-up that had the New York City publishing world abuzz, Evans was named publisher of Random House, the nation's largest producer of trade books. Among his first assignments: editing the memoirs of Rupert Murdoch.

It was another odd twist for the publishing house, which is owned by S.I. Newhouse's media conglomerate. Evans, 62, was brought in to replace Joni Evans (no relation), one of New York's most high-powered book editors, who joined Random House in 1987. Her reassignment followed by just a year the ouster of the company's longtime chief executive, Robert Bernstein, who was replaced by Alberto Vitale.

Industry insiders speculated that Joni Evans, 48, had been fired because of disappointing sales for several recent Random House books, among them Donald Trump's Surviving at the Top and Shana Alexander's biography of Bess Myerson, When She Was Bad. The principals denied that scenario: Random House expects to have "a record year in profits" Vitale said, with 18 best sellers. Friends say Evans felt crushed under the administrative responsibilities of her job and wanted to return to editing. She not only will continue at Random House but will have the cachet of her own imprint.

Her successor brings a fresh dose of glamour to the usually staid book- publishing world: Evans and his wife Tina Brown, another transplanted Brit, who edits Vanity Fair magazine, are among Manhattan's most prominent and influential media couples. Evans also brings to the job an exuberant and aggressive style. At the London Sunday Times he established an investigative team that uncovered the Kim Philby spy scandal and exposed the dangers of thalidomide. After moving to the U.S. in 1984, he took over Atlantic Monthly press (his only previous book-publishing job) and later U.S. News and World Report. Since 1987 he has been editor-in-chief of Conde Nast Traveler, where he stressed tough reporting in a field usually satisfied with puffery.

Evans, who has written several books of his own, comes to Random House at a time when hard-pressed publishers are trying to compete by paying advances that frequently top $1 million -- and in many cases suffering big losses when % the books don't become blockbusters. Known for his free-spending ways, Evans does not seem likely to shy away from these battles. But that could put him in conflict with chairman Vitale, who has a reputation for paying close attention to the bottom line.

Evans is interested in politics and history, and he is expected to emphasize high-profile journalistic books. "I'll get a chance to repeat the kind of thing I did at the Sunday Times," he says. But within hours of being appointed, he was on the phone with some of Random House's top fiction authors -- among them E.L. Doctorow, William Styron and Norman Mailer -- to reassure them of his "passionate interest" in their work. He was calling other authors as well, in an effort to woo them to Random House. "He has a huge amount of personal prestige in the publishing and writing community," says literary agent Mort Janklow. "He will attract writers by the score." Will this hard-charging new chief ratchet up the best-seller wars another notch? It's a story line even Murdoch would enjoy.

With reporting by Priscilla Painton/New York